TV Timers Help Parents

Posted onApril 23, 2012by Jason

Most families agree that limiting TV time is important to raising a well rounded child. Parents know that this can be easier said than done. Here are a couple of solutions that may help parents in this endeavor.

Satellite Receiver – Limiting TV time can be easy with a satellite receiver. Directv and Dish Network both carry the option to limit the amount of time that your television can receive a television signal. The options include the ability to limit the total amount of time that the television can be watched within a day, or to limit the times of day that the television can be on.

X-Box 360 has a timer built in that only allows the X-box to work for a given amount of time throughout the day. The Wii and the Play Station do not have a parental control timer.

TV Token Machine – This cool device allows your children to earn tokens in order to turn on the television. This can control both the television and the video game time in one device. The kids can choose when and how they use their tokens. It is not fool proof, if your kids work hard and slowly take off the tape in order to unplug the device, you may never know that they watched TV without paying their tokens. Some older higher end televisions require a fan to run after the television is turned off in order to properly cool down the television. The TV Token Machine immediately disconnects the television from power which could cause your TV to overheat and burn out early. To check if your TV will be fine, turn it off and listen for a fan. If you don’t hear one then you will be fine using this product.

We do not understand why TV manufacturer’s haven’t incorporated this feature into their televisions. TV’s have all sorts of parental features that we don’t use, but the one feature we would use they don’t put in. Who uses their television for parental control? Most of us have a separate receiver that has its own set of parental controls. About the only useful parental control for a television would be a parental control timer and we are yet to find one with this feature. If anyone out there has a television with this feature please comment and let us know.